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Crossed Swords in Washington Heights

RACES for district leader are usually sleepy affairs. There are 126 district leaders in Manhattan alone, most spots are seldom contested, and the job is an unpaid position at the bottom of the electoral totem pole. But over the summer, the heavily Dominican neighborhood of Washington Heights was abuzz over the race between Albania Lopez, a young community organizer, and an incumbent, Maria Morillo, a teacher and veteran political foot soldier.

The chatter, however, had little to do with the candidates. It centered instead on their patrons, who are two of the city’s most powerful Dominican politicians: City Councilman Miguel Martinez, who is 36, and his former mentor, Assemblyman Adriano Espaillat, who is 53. Ms. Morillo is a member of Mr. Espaillat’s political club, Northern Manhattan Democrats for Change. Ms. Lopez belongs to Mr. Martinez’s club, Democrats in the Heights.

Under the rules of political etiquette, Mr. Martinez might have been expected to defer to his former mentor’s choice. His support of Ms. Lopez amounted to a nervy challenge to Mr. Espaillat, the equivalent of pulling up beside him at a light and revving his engines.

As it happens, Ms. Morillo defeated Ms. Lopez, 1,008 votes to 899. The result was no surprise — Ms. Morillo was a heavily endorsed incumbent — but the race did raise eyebrows. It confirmed what observers have whispered for years: that the friendship between Mr. Espaillat and Mr. Martinez is in tatters.

Although the race for district leader may have highlighted the split, there had been signs of discord. At Mr. Espaillat’s clubhouse, a three-room suite on 178th Street near St. Nicholas Avenue, a framed article featuring the club hangs just inside the door, illustrated with several photographs of men conferring earnestly in groups. But the image of one of the men in the photos, for a time at least, was consistently blacked out with Magic Marker.

The pictures date to the days when the relatively jovial Mr. Martinez and the more brooding, intense Mr. Espaillat were notably close. “They used to hang out together, laugh, make jokes,” said Assemblyman Ruben Diaz Jr., who represents much of the South Bronx. “They were like brothers.”

By all accounts, Mr. Espaillat embraced Mr. Martinez’s political career, starting with the younger man’s first race for district leader in 1997. Members of Mr. Espaillat’s family even handed out fliers for Mr. Martinez, and did so again for his 2001 campaign for City Council. Mr. Martinez’s family returned the favor when Assemblyman Espaillat ran for re-election.

Sometime after 2001, however, the friendship between the men started to cool, for reasons that are murky and complicated and depend upon whom you ask. Mr. Espaillat’s support for Mr. Martinez’s Council re-election bid in 2003 was notably more tepid than for the earlier one. In 2005, Mr. Martinez left Mr. Espaillat’s club and formed his own, and ever since, the two men have disagreed about everything from tree plantings to leadership of community boards.

Community leaders say this antagonism has stalled progress on many fronts, from the redevelopment of the Sherman Creek industrial area to the fight for low-income housing.

“If you go to one of them and talk to them about a problem, the other doesn’t want anything to do with you,” said Dr. Rafael Lantigua, a co-founder of Alianza Dominicana, an advocacy and social services group. “The idea of Adriano is, ‘Miguel is not going anywhere because Miguel is a traitor.’ The idea of Miguel is, ‘Nobody can work with Adriano.’”

Photo

IN BETTER DAYS Adriano Espaillat, in tie, with Miguel Martinez.Credit
Landa M. Towns for The Manhattan Times

Typically, a feud like this divides a neighborhood into warring camps. But Upper Manhattan political observers have taken a plague-on-both-your-houses approach.

“We have asked them: ‘Please, become civilized again. Work together again,’” Dr. Lantigua said. “To the senior activists, this is shameful. We are considered the clowns of city politics.”

Dominican activists particularly worry because the two men are considered key to Dominicans’ political future. Although Washington Heights and Inwood have been heavily Dominican since the 1960s, not until 1991 did they elect a Dominican politician, Councilman Guillermo Linares. Mr. Espaillat, who was elected to the Assembly in 1996, is today the state’s, and perhaps the country’s, longest-serving and most powerful elected Dominican. Both Mr. Espaillat and Mr. Martinez have further political ambitions.

Mr. Espaillat is rumored to have an eye on Charles Rangel’s Congressional seat, should Mr. Rangel retire, or on the Manhattan borough presidency, which he sought unsuccessfully in 2005.

Term limits require that Mr. Martinez leave his Council seat in 2009, and if he is to run for a new office, he will presumably be eager to raise his political profile.

EVERY Dominican political observer’s nightmare is a bruising fight between the two, in which, say, Mr. Espaillat blocks Mr. Martinez’s ascent, or Mr. Martinez opposes Mr. Espaillat for the Assembly.

“It wasn’t easy to get one of us elected from this community,” said Maria Luna, a Washington Heights district leader. “I hope that this doesn’t open a window for someone else from another ethnicity to grab it away from them.”

Mr. Diaz, the Bronx assemblyman, was more direct. “I keep telling them, you’ve got to work together,” he said. “Us Puerto Ricans, we are passing by, and the Dominican community has to take power. If they don’t work together, they’re going to get beat up by the Mexicans.”

No one can pinpoint the roots of the dispute. Mr. Martinez said that Mr. Espaillat wanted to limit the variety of local groups he financed. “Our sticking point was the fact that I decided to work with a diverse field of organizations in our district,” the councilman said. Mr. Espaillat rejected that explanation, saying he and Mr. Martinez directed government money to virtually the same groups.

Instead, Mr. Espaillat portrayed the split as Mr. Martinez’s choice. “He comes out of our club, he was groomed by us, and he left,” Mr. Espaillat said. “ I can’t really explain that.”

And the Magic Marker?

Mr. Espaillat chuckled. “They may have cleaned that up,” he said.

A version of this article appears in print on , on page 14CY4 of the National edition with the headline: Crossed Swords in Washington Heights. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe